With the release of the iPhone OS 4 SDK Apple has updated its iPhone developer program license agreement with the following clause:
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
This is a vast change to the previous iPhone developer program license agreement which simply stated:
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.
What this essentially does is outlaw the use of Adobe’s previously announced Packager for iPhone which was to be included in the firm’s upcoming Adobe Flash Professional CS5, part of Adobe’s Creative Suite 5, scheduled for launch on April 12th.
Adobe’s Packager for iPhone was meant to allow developers to use Flash technologies to develop content for the iPhone and iPod Touch, while also allowing the code used to create the application to be used across all the other Flash Platform runtimes, making it easier for developers to port their apps to other devices, as well as to the web.
But with this new clause, Steve Jobs has launched a pre-emptive and seemingly successful strike on Adobe before CS5 has even been officially unveiled.
It certainly seems the Jobs mob is intent on stomping out Flash every chance it gets!
